


Hold Me Like a Grudge

by evieoh



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, And Accidentally Falling in Love, Dark Skye | Daisy Johnson, F/M, Light Angst, Plotting The Downfall of Your Enemies, Possibly Less Light If This Gets Continued, Revenge AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-22 02:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15571542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evieoh/pseuds/evieoh
Summary: For the truly wronged, real satisfaction can only be found in one of two places: Absolute forgiveness, or mortal vindication. This is not a story about forgiveness.Fifteen years ago, Daisy Johnson’s father was framed for treason, and the murder of his wife. The Ward family destroyed her entire life. Now, as Skye, she is coming to take them all down.Their middle son Grant, the troubled black sheep, seems like the perfect way in. But she wasn’t counting on actually feeling something for him. Or that his hatred of his family might be as great as her own.(Skyeward Revenge AU)





	Hold Me Like a Grudge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stargazerdaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargazerdaisy/gifts).



> Happy Birthday to my amazing beta/best friend stargazerdaisy! (and so many thanks to Muž for helping me plot it out in her place)

_For the truly wronged, real satisfaction can only be found in one of two places: Absolute forgiveness, or mortal vindication. This is not a story about forgiveness._

“So this whole time… Was any of it real?”

Skye had been struggling to pull herself up into a sitting position against the wall but the question stills her movements. Glancing across the broken furniture and scattered debris that fills the room ( _a fitting metaphor for their home now_ ) she finds his gaze on her. His eyes are full of anger, but underneath that there is a world of hurt that matches the bitterness in his tone. For someone who always holds his emotions so close it’s a surprising amount of vulnerability to be showing. 

She can’t hold his gaze. Looking down at her stomach instead she notices the way the ring on her finger still catches the light through the blood on her hand and Skye stares at it as she ponders the question. 

It started out a lie, there is no denying that. But somewhere along the way it became something else and she’s not even sure how to untangle the mess of it all. Slivers of truth in so many lies, and does it even matter anymore? The end result is the same no matter what intentions she began with.

Skye coughs and tastes the coppery tang of blood on her tongue. That’s worrying. She shifts her position against the wall, hissing as a fresh wave of pain stabs from her abdomen at the movement. The sound has him stepping towards her, concern in his expression now. She’s not sure if it’s just habit or if it’s a sign he still cares. She hopes it’s the latter. But hoping has never exactly worked out well for her in the past.

Grant kneels before her, gently pushing her hands away from her stomach as he examines the wound. The softness of his touch has tears stinging behind her eyes and she blinks harshly to keep them at bay. He’s so close but he’s not looking at her anymore, his attention focused on her abdomen instead. She wishes he would look at her. She’s starting to feel cold and all she wants is his arms around her to keep her warm.

Shaking her head at herself for the foolish thought, her eyes are drawn back to the body on the other side of the room. There is a pool of blood spreading and she has a brief inane thought about how difficult it’s going to be to get that stain out. The gun lays just beyond the reach of lifeless fingers and Skye spares a moment to think of how this might have gone. A few more minutes, a few more inches higher, a few wrong moves and she’d be the one laying dead on the living room floor. _If it weren’t for him._

(She's starting to feel faint though, her heartbeat sounding sluggish and too loud in her ears, like the first time she saw the beach and her father held a seashell up to her ear and she could hear the ocean roar inside of it)

Her fingers reach for his, her hands clumsy and slippery with blood, but she manages to entwine their grasp after a moment. She grips as tightly as she can, while the room dims and her lips begin to feel numb.

“It wasn’t all a lie, not with you.”

This is how the story begins - once upon a time there was a man with a brilliant mind, passionate and driven. Sometimes too passionate and driven. People called him a genius though and so his intensity, his occasional outbursts, were forgiven. He loved his wife and their daughter more than anything else in the world and wanted to give them everything they desired, and when he took the position as the head of R+D at one of the leading global private security and intelligence companies in the country it seemed he might be finally able to. He bought them a beautiful home, lavished them with gifts, indulged any whim his daughter might have had. It almost seemed a small price to pay to look the other way when it came to some of the company’s less than moral actions. Until the day it wasn’t.

Little did he know that the price for trying to do the right thing was to lose everything he loved in the world.

 

When Skye was a child she believed the world was just and fair, that if you were a good person then life would be good to you. ‘Do unto others’ and ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ and all of that. She was taught to believe that forgiveness was strength.

But she was a different person then. Literally. Little Daisy had two parents who adored her, who were devoted to each other. She grew up in a home full of love.

And then it was stolen from her. Twisted into something ugly and untrue. They tried so hard to reshape the memories she had and make them into a nightmare. They told her that her father was insane, that he committed treason, that he killed her mother in a fit of rage. They told her that every single thing she thought she knew about her life was a lie. They told her that so many times that she eventually believed it was the truth.

She knows better now. She knows what was taken from her, and exactly who took it.

The saying goes that before you embark on a journey of revenge you should dig two graves, but the little girl she used to be is already dead and buried. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but nothing can ever make what they stole from her right. She doesn’t believe in justice anymore, or that there is strength in forgiveness. Forgiveness is an insult to the memories of her parents.

_This is not a story about forgiveness._

She just wants to make them pay for it, to destroy the lives of everyone who destroyed hers.

Or this is where the story begins: 

Skye feels a thrill of anticipation as she steps onto the extravagant yacht, the final stage of her plans falling into place at last.

It’s been nearly seven years now since Raina, her father’s former assistant, found her in juvenile detention. By that time Daisy had been bounced from foster home to foster home for almost eight years before running away, and had been told so many times that her father was a monster that she eventually believed it. It took a long time for Raina to convince her otherwise. The older woman had been by Cal’s side when he discovered the plot the company was involved in, was the only person who believed in his innocence and stood by him until the day he was murdered in a prison brawl. She was the one who carried on his dreams of vengeance against those who had wronged him and delivered the journals he had written, the only inheritance he had left for his daughter. Each one of the notebooks was filled with names, detailed lists of sins, and plans for retribution. They became her bible, she would study them until she could recite the details from memory.

She and Raina never became what could be called friends, but they were something like allies.

As Skye surveils the crowd, the other woman’s voice sounds in her ear.

_“Are you sure about this, Skye?”_

Skye resists the urge to roll her eyes. Raina hates giving up control, and she has been subtly undermining Skye’s big move nearly every step of the way.

Everyone involved knew Raina’s face, remembered her as the woman who refused to let it go. She hadn’t had any family left, but they found other ways to destroy her life and career. She was too well known to slip back into things on a visible scale, so she worked behind the scenes. They still needed someone to control the action though, someone unknown to the people they were going to take down.

And so Skye was born, from the ashes of little lost orphan Daisy.

Together they plotted and planned for years, strategizing and fine-tuning, building a solid background for the woman they created. Turned out her misspent youth as a transient hacker was useful. It also gave her the skills to build an airtight identity. By the time Skye was 24, she was highly sought after, free-spirited and extraordinarily talented computer securities expert, exactly the kind of person likely to be recruited by Lowell Worldwide.

As the years have passed, she and Raina had crossed off some of the smaller names on the list, learning more about how deep the conspiracy that had tangled their lives truly went. With each person they marked off, Skye felt a small piece of the weight on her heart lift. They left a careful, almost surgical, swathe of destruction in their wake. Not a single link could be made between the sudden disasters that befell these people and the events of 15 years ago. It just appeared to be a mysterious string of terrible luck. A marriage falling apart as secrets came to light here, a sudden bankruptcy there. Anyone who had profited from the conspiracy was fair game.

There was no mercy from either woman. None had been shown for them.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she murmurs to Raina now, as she takes a sip from the glass of champagne she gracefully accepts from a passing waiter and scans the crowd. Almost everyone left on the list is onboard this boat and for a second Skye wishes she could just blow the whole thing up. Death would be too easy though. She wants to systematically take everything they love from them, whether it’s their money, their families, power, love, reputations. She wants every single one of them to stand in the wreckage of their lives and know that they have wrought every bit of misery they feel themselves. “This is the way we get closest to them, we’ve been over this.”

_“I still think that you would be better off-”_

Skye tunes out as the other woman mutters about the backup plan they both know would never work. She’s the one who is in the field for this, so they are going to play the game her way. Raina is just going to have to learn to accept that.

“Going dark now,” Skye mutters as she discreetly removes the earpiece. This evening is going to be difficult enough without Raina as the voice in her head, second guessing every move she makes.

Surveying the deck of the yacht, Skye feels the adrenaline spark in her blood at how close they are now. Everyone at the top of their list is here tonight. (Everyone but one, and those that are here are the ones that will lead them to him.)

Standing on the upper deck is the queen herself. Vivian Lowell-Ward. Business tycoon, political powerbroker, and, when it suits her needs, charitable benefactor.

Her father, Douglas Lowell, founded Lowell Worldwide and profited greatly from World War II as a weapons manufacturer, and Vivian took over as director after his death. Under her leadership the company has grown exponentially, taking on numerous government private military contracts and expanding more into global security than the weapons technology development that was the original backbone of the company. She is a powerful woman in world that is still heavily a boys club, and if it weren’t for the fact that she is a truly despicable human being she might almost be admirable. To the public she is, plenty of people willing to turn a blind eye to the messy reality of private military in order to revere her influence, her charities, her smashing of the glass ceiling. Skye knows too much to ever see her as anything other than the monster she truly is however. The woman might not have been the true mastermind behind the attack, and the subsequent plan to frame Cal Johnson, but she was the one who profited the most from it and more than gladly set the wheels in motion.

Skye’s gaze lingers too long, and the older woman has noticed her where she stands on the deck below. Vivian stares back, her gaze probing and Skye has a moment of near paralyzing doubt that maybe she sees the resemblance between her and her mother. But it’s unlikely Vivian Lowell-Ward even remembers what the man she had sent to prison for her crimes looked like, let alone the wife she’d had killed in order to shut him up.

Technically the older woman is Skye’s boss, but she definitely didn’t rank an interview with the president of the company so this is the first time she’s ever been this close to her. She has to work hard to keep the disgust and hatred out of her expression as she smiles sunnily up at the other woman, projecting her facade as just another ass-kissing employee. Something must show through though, because Vivian doesn’t smile back. She just keeps gazing at Skye with that speculative look in her eye, and Skye feels uncomfortably stripped under that scrutiny. There’s a faint feeling of relief when someone else grabs Vivian’s attention and her stare finally shifts.

Vivian Lowell-Ward hasn’t reached the position she has without gaining the skills that make her a formidable adversary. But that doesn’t mean that she can’t be destroyed as thoroughly as anyone else in the end. It’s just going to take a light touch, and some careful maneuvering along the way. She’s going to be a hard one to deceive, but Skye has had nearly a lifetime of learning to be someone else to survive. Skye is who she is because of that woman, shaped almost entirely by the choices and actions that were made 15 years ago in the name of money and power, and it seems only fitting that she will be the one to take her down.

Taking a deep breath, Skye turns back to the rest of the party guests. It’s like swimming in a snake pit and her skin crawls at the thought of having to mingle and schmooze and smile politely at the people that plotted her family’s destruction.

Nodding at her from the bar is Gideon Malick, from old Southern money and full of charm that fell just this side of smarmy, head of the private security division at Lowell Worldwide and Skye’s new boss. He was the one that Cal went to with his first suspicions that the terrorist attack bore striking resemblance to the weapons he himself had designed. According to Cal’s notebooks Malick reassured him that it was nothing but a coincidence, but that he would investigate it himself to be sure. Less than a week later Cal was framed for murder and colluding with terrorists.

Skye raises her glass in his direction with a cheerful smile as she imagines a dozen different scenarios that involve smashing the damn thing and stabbing him in the face with broken shards.

A hand at her elbow draws her back to reality and she turns to find the smirking face of Ian Quinn, standing just a fraction too close as always. He had been Cal’s protege once. Now he runs the R+D department in his place.

He leans in even closer, his hand sliding onto her lower back, too familiar in a way that makes Skye’s skin crawl. Something about the look in his eyes when he watches her always sends a small shiver of unease through her that no amount of drawing on May’s training can stop. Still she forces a polite smile on her face as he leads her over to a group standing nearby, telling her she just has to meet Qasim Zaghul, a Saudi industrialist that the company has been courting for an investor.

It’s technically a charity function, a party to kick off the summer season in the Hamptons, but it’s being hosted the director of Lowell Worldwide so almost every department head is there and there is a definite undertone of company schmoozing.

Skye smiles and laughs on cue, shifting just enough that Quinn’s hand falls from her back as she charms Zaghul and asks after his wife and children. All the while her eyes scan the room for her mark. She knows he is supposed to be here tonight. But this is also the third event she’s attended where he was assured to be there only to come up empty. She’s working on a strict timetable and the window of time to make her move is getting close now. She needs him to be here. She needs to make contact, set the entire thing into motion.

The tinkling sound of a spoon tapping a champagne glass draws her attention away from the crowd and up to the podium at the end of the room, where the hostess is waiting to begin her opening speech.

Skye’s stomach clenches and her vision narrows as she watches Vivian Lowell-Ward speak. The woman has the blood of thousands on her hands, and yet she stands there and spouts platitudes about charity and love for her fellow man with such convincing sincerity. If Skye didn’t despise the woman she might almost be able to respect how well she can play the con.

Congressman Gregory Ward stands by his wife’s side, ever the loyal husband. Nobody doubted the backroom handshake deals done by his wife to get him his seat at the table, it was something of an open secret in DC. But Vivian Lowell-Ward wielded enough power that no one questioned his position.

Their names were among the final ones on Skye’s list, topped only by one - the man her father had known only as Whitehall, the mastermind behind the entire plot. The man who murdered her mother. And the Wards are her only chance at finding him. So even though it turns her stomach to even think of speaking cordially to the people who planned and carried out the destruction of Skye’s entire life, the people who viewed her mother as nothing more than a way to ruin her father, the people who orchestrated a terrorist attack purely to profit in the aftermath, she knows that in order to carry out her and Raina’s plans she needs to become as close to the family as she can. And then she can poison them from the inside, create little cracks and eventually the whole facade will shatter.

She just needs that reason to get closer to them, working at the company is good but not enough. And that’s what she’s here for today. Tuning out on Vivian’s speech she turns to scan the crowd on the deck again for her mark, finally spotting him standing towards the bow of the boat a little apart from the crowd. A strong feeling of relief washes over her at the sight of him present and accounted for at last. 

She had done a fair amount of research on Vivian and Gregory’s children before making her choice, and she feels fairly confident in her decision . 

Senator Christian Ward’s roaming eye is legendary in certain circles, and he would have made the easiest mark of the Ward children. But being the mistress of the political scion would not gain her the access she needed to the family.

Thomas, the baby of the family, was her second choice. Her research on him quickly nixed that idea as it became apparent that as long as she had an xx chromosome she had no luck with him.

There was Rose, but she appeared to be solidly based in Europe these days and rarely came home for family functions, so befriending her was hardly going to be a useful in with the family.

And so that left Grant Ward. The troubled middle son. Publicly he was a decorated war hero, prodigal son returned to the family business at last, but Skye’s hacking skills had uncovered a juvenile record that would have likely matched her own if not for his parents influence. Then he joined the military and spent most of the last eight years on active duty. At one point he had seemed to be doing his best to separate himself from his family entirely, but something seemed to have happened in the 12 months since his return from his final tour of duty and he was back in the family fold as though he had always been. It’s rumored that he’s going to take over the private security division from Malick, but Skye isn’t sure yet just how much truth there is to the office gossip. His parents certainly seem to be grooming him for something like that with his presence here tonight, he doesn’t usually make public appearances and certainly not at such a heavily company event. The rare occasions that he does, from what she’s seen from afar, he has a certain heavy arrogance and she’s not sure if it comes from growing up in a family full of wealth and power, or if it’s from his years in the military. He projects an air of capableness that is almost an armor, like he needs nothing from anybody else. It makes him a tricky target.

There was something on edge about him tonight however, a difference in the usual distance between him and anyone standing nearby. It looks less like anger and more like extreme discomfort, something in the way he looks at the crowd that makes Skye think he feels just as out of place here as she does. Almost a little vulnerable. Hopefully that will work in her favor.

Now it’s all down to the approach.

She’s mentally gauging which strategy would work best based off his body language when he suddenly looks in her direction and catches her staring at him. Skye glances away quickly, feeling flustered at being caught off guard after all her preparation. If there’s one thing her mission has taught her so far though, it’s that planning only takes you so far. You always need to be prepared to improvise. Glancing back at him, she finds his gaze still on her. This time when they make eye contact she holds it, smiling lightly at him. He doesn’t smile back, but he doesn’t look away and for the first time since all of this began Skye feels exposed, that heavy gaze on her, like he can actually see her and everything she is hiding. It’s a ridiculous thought though, and she shakes it off as she stares back at him. There is certainly something captivating about his face - those rich brown eyes and his sharp high cheekbones demanding attention. The idea of having to seduce him for the plan to work isn’t exactly distasteful. 

It’s more than that though. When she first came across the bits of information from his wayward youth it was easy to dismiss it as a poor little rich boy’s rebellion. The more she has studied about him though, the more she thinks that there is definitely more to Grant Ward than appears from the outside. 

She’s so busy watching him that she has tuned out on the sound of his mother’s speech, and it’s only when she notices the people around her clapping that she realizes it’s over. As she belatedly joins the rest of the guests and claps politely she notices Grant is still watching her. There is a slight quirk to the edge of his lips now though, not quite enough to be called a smile but definitely somewhere in the general vicinity of one. She shakes her head, feigning bashfulness at being caught out, smiling back briefly before turning away. She can feel his gaze still on her, and there is a thrill that settles in her belly as the anticipation kicks into high gear. 

She has his attention now.

At first she considers waiting for him to come to her. But she’s been surveilling him long enough now to know he’s not exactly the ladies man like his older brother, in almost a year of watching him she’s rarely seen him date, or even approach a woman in a bar. So it’s up to her. 

She takes her time, mingling among the schmoozing crowd, making polite small talk with people she has made detailed plans to ruin the lives of. She sips her champagne and makes a concentrated effort to keep her true emotions off her features. All the while she has a constant awareness of him as she moves around the deck of the boat, and there is still that little thrill that rushes through her whenever she notices him still staring at her that feels a little more like something real than she wants to think about too deeply. He’s a mark, her way in. Nothing more. If he happens to be one of the most attractive men she’s ever been so close to, well that is just a perk. If her plans work out, by the end of this he will despise her for ruining the life he’s known.

But even with those thoughts running through her head like a mantra, the way he turns like he’s been expecting her when she stumbles into his back and spills her drink on his jacket, the way he smirks at her apology like he knows exactly how planned every one of her moves has been, the way she feels something like a spark when his hands brush against hers as she attempts to dab at the spreading damp on his shoulder with a napkin, it all has her feeling flustered and a little giddy. Like it’s real.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” she babbles, standing close enough that he can easily get a glimpse down the neckline of her pink dress, making sure to let her hands linger just a little longer than necessary as she wipes at his jacket. All while watching him carefully to gauge his reaction.

He’s even harder to read up close. His face gives barely anything away, except that lingering ghost of a smirk, and he seems to be reading her just as intently as she is him. It’d be frustrating if it didn’t send a spark of heat through her blood. She’s always loved a challenge.

“It’s fine,” he says, smoothly shrugging out of the jacket. His shoulders look somehow broader in just the white button down he’s wearing underneath it. “I’m sure my mother would say it’s time for a costume change anyway.”

There’s a sardonic twist to his mouth as he speaks, an undertone of bitterness that intrigues her. There will be time in the future to delve deeper into his thoughts on the skeletons that line the Ward family attic though. For now she grins at him as open and guilelessly as she can. “You look better without it anyway.”

He laughs, a short chuckle that seems to take him by surprise and Skye feels a sudden burst of pride at catching him off his guard.

“Hi, I’m Skye, by the way,” she says brightly, holding her hand out.

“Grant Ward,” he replies as he takes it. She feels that same spark as their hands meet, and it makes her falter for a second before she pulls it together.

“I know,” she smirks as she turns back to the Ward family portrait hanging by the podium, prompting another laugh from him.

“Ok, that was probably starting off on the wrong foot, let me start over and make it up to you,” she says, gesturing at his jacket before tilting her head towards the open bar with a grin. “Can I buy you a drink?”

He smiles back at her, but she notices the way he hesitates for a moment and for a second she worries that she’s approached this all wrong. But then he grins at her with a rueful shake of his head.

“Lead the way,” he says, sweeping one hand before himself.

As they fall into step, his body shifting closer to hers as they weave their way through the crowd by the bar, Skye can feel everything falling into place at last. She feels a strange mix of triumph and regret at how easily it is coming together. There’s a feeling of tragic inevitability, like she’s just strapped herself into a rollercoaster that she knows has an incomplete track. No matter what else happens now, she’s committed to a path that she knows has no happy ending for anyone.

This is not a story about forgiveness after all.


End file.
